These are the views from our back verandah, into the Jacaranda and the Silky Oak, which are both in flower. I have just repainted the floor of the verandah, as you can see. The verandah is really like an extra room. We use it a great deal. On Wednasday, when we got a big storm, our little butcher birds sought shelter there. They were drenched and we were glad to offer them s
a haven. The other 2 pictures are of one of the pizzas I made for the Yandina Community garden lunch, and the oven we cooked them in. It was a lot of fun, even if we did not really know how to manipulate the heat of the oven. The fire would have cooked a storm 24 hours later.
We are feeling the relief of the storm on Wednesday. 3 of our 4 tanks are full, and the other one is in need of gutter clearing, which will happen next week. We couls catch an awful lot more water. Maybe we will get some overflow tanks.

This is our " Lying down" attempt.
TITLE " HENPECKED"!
All involved loved it.

Well, the pond is holding water! As yet---but I am ever pessimistic.
We now are faced with another problem. We have a proposed trip to Shanghia coming up in november, and we are faced with the issue of having our chooks minded. We had thought we had it all worked out, but that has collapsed, and we now need new arrangements.
Why do people not offer "chook minding"-- or chookeries--- like kennels? There must be lots of people who need this service. I am sure our chooks would love a change of scene.
We cannot really take them in our luggage--they would not get through the security screen, and what would we do with the eggs on the flights?
Perhaps we could get the scrub turkey to chook-sit.

The saga of the pool continues. First we have an emptied pool, very sad that and a lot of work. Then we need to dig our the supposed seal, get a plug, and an expensive new seal called Sikaflex, and a gun, to apply it, and off to work. These guns are VERY hard to work, ( at least for me), and it took ages. Now , as you can see, we have a grey mound of Sikaflex,and --- we shall see.
Meanwhile the poor water plants are in a tub. And, as you can see a nest of baby spiders has decided to hatch. WOW!